Revolutions

Toward the end of 1988, the Hadzicki Brothers, of San Diego, California, released the Revolution I, a kite designed to be flown with four lines. These four lines allow the flier to move the kite in any direction, with control over the speed of the kite .

I bought my first Rev in March of 1989, after seeing them flown at the Smithsonian Kite Festival. It took me almost a year to start flying the kite with any real proficiency, but I've never looked back.

In September of 1991, I bought a slightly used Rev II, the 2/3 scale version of the Revolution I. Though I was a reasonably good quad flyer at this point, and enjoyed it well enough, the Rev II really made me love quads. Faster and more radical than th e Revolution I, the Rev II is, to my mind, best when flown with long throw handles on short lines. It's also my kite of choice for indoor flying. In addition to my stock kite, I have 5 custom kites, filling a huge range of wind conditions.

In addition to the standard sized kites, I have a set of 10 3' "baby revs," most of which I built in late 1991. Unbelievably fast, these kites can also pull like a bear when stacked. Personally, I think it's best flying 5-10 of them in winds of 30+ mph . What a trip!

This was my first Rev II and I've never been particularly happy with the way it flies. Some problems were inherent in the template, which I modified before I built any more kites, and other errors in the sail propagated due to my lack of precision in sewing together the 16 panels. (96K)

A year or so later, after modifying my Rev II template (made by tracing my stock sail), I built a couple of Rev II's out of 3/4oz Icarex. The lead kite in this picture is framed with a stock frame and bridle, while the rear kite is an ult ralight, framed in SkyShark IIIp, with no bridle. (66K)

My indoor (or SUL) Rev II is built of 1/2oz Icarex on SkyShark IIp sticks. Hems are folded once, not rolled, and the various pieces of reinforcement are smaller than I use on my UL kites. Overall weight is just over 3oz. While many have q uestioned the use of screening (particularly the popular but heavy fiberglass screening as is used in stock Revs), I feel that this Rev II hits the balance between "light enough" and "not heavy enough." It does everything I want indoors, yet it is not so heavy that I can't fly for sustained periods of time without giving myself an asthma attack. Always a plus. (49K)

Sometime in mid-1991, I first saw Paul Dugard's stack of five 3' "baby revs" and I knew I had to have my own stack. The kites are a bit under 36" wide and were designed so that each kite could be made from two sticks of 28.5" AFC .1800 pul trude. One stick is cut into four pieces -- two uprights, of approximately 12", and the remaining piece is cut in half. These are then ferruled on both ends of the remaining full stick. To help deal with the stresses in a large stack, the lead kite is fra med with .1880 all around, and the second kite in the stack has an .1880 leading edge.

The stack in this image consists of 9 kites. I have a tenth baby rev, but leave it unattached for flying individually. This same stack of 9 little kite was able to drag me on the beach in Wildwood during the '94 Convention. (32K)

In the Spring of 1995, Revolution finally graced us with a new version of their kite. The 1.5 is sized halfway between the I and II, at 7.5 feet wide. Unlike the II, which is basically a I with the ends lopped off, the 1.5 is proportione d like a scaled-up II. Many consider it to be the best in the Revolution family. Personally, I still prefer the II, but I really grew to love this SUL 1.5 while working at EPCOT last September. A few photos of me flying thi s kite at Disney are availble on the World Festival of Kites sites page.

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